Before her friend died, though, Grabenstein reached out on a whim to the manager of singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson, of whom both she and her friend were big fans.

When Michaelson surprisingly responded with an autographed T-shirt and personalized note, it set the groundwork for Grabenstein’s future full-time endeavor of BANDADE, a charitable business that taps popular musicians to help raise money to aid in the fight against cancer.

Grabenstein said the idea for BANDADE came first with just selling autographed merchandise, later growing to host charitable concerts.

Since then, artists in the BANDADE family have included Iron & Wine, Andrew Bird, Florence Welch, the Goo Goo Dolls, Ben Kweller, and many others.

Grabenstein worked for Broadcasting Music, Inc. in Nashville, before returning to Philly and committing to running her business here. After a series of shows featuring artists at local music venues like Milkboy and Bourbon & Branch, BANDADE kicked off an East Coast summer tour in June, bookending it with shows at Wissahickon Brewing in East Falls.

“I was basically doing these shows as a hobby, once a month or so, for the last couple years,” Grabenstein said in an email. “Then in June I decided to really take the leap and do it all the time – that’s where the tour idea came from. It’s essentially a moving festival, because it’s different artists in each city.”

In designing the 14-stop brewery tour, Grabenstein received support from several Philly-based businesses to act as sponsors, including La Colombe, United by Blue, Maaco, and others.

The final stop of the tour will be this Friday, headlined by Nashville-based singer Nikki Lane.

Throughout the tour, Grabenstein and her team have driven and camped out in their BANDADE Jeep Wrangler and recorded a podcast documenting their travels called Reel Adventures.